FIRST team at underwater competition

[N7UJJ]

Carl Hayden's Falcon Robotics, team 842 participated for the third year in an underwater robot competition. We compete in the "explorer" or college level class. Once again a FIRST high school team beat all the other colleges and universities, except one from Canada. (Perhaps U.S. culture has taken it's eye off the education engineering ball?)

If you are interested in pictures:
http://www.phxhs.k12.az.us/education...60&pagecat=209
Details about our ROV:
http://www.phxhs.k12.az.us/education...60&pagecat=209

Here is our Press Release:


Carl Hayden Finishes 2nd in National Underwater Robotics Event

Phoenix—Carl Hayden High School’s Robotics team, competing against college and university engineering students from throughout North America, finished runners-up in a national ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) championship Saturday at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
The Falcons, the only high school team in the Explorer division, were edged by The Marine Institute of Memorial University from Newfoundland, Canada in the Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) ROV Championship. The second-place finish marks the third consecutive year the Falcons placed in the top three in this event. Two years ago, Hayden gained worldwide notoriety when it shocked MIT and others to win the championship.
The team of Cristian Arcega, Adam Burch, Daniel Federle, Annalisa Regalado, Lorenzo Santillan and Pablo Santillan coached by teachers Fredi Lajvardi and Allan Cameron, surprised the competition and judges again, when they built and piloted two ROVs simultaneously to complete the mission tasks faster and more efficiently, while staying within the mission parameters. A large ROV, named Otis, (after the elevator) used higher voltage and current to navigate up and down the 40-foot deep Neutral Buoyancy Lab pool. It was teamed with a smaller finesse robot called Ipski-Pipski to conduct a series of tasks. The team was also judged on an engineering evaluation and technical report.
Many of the robots were overcome by water pressure, and never made it back to the surface in the allotted 30 minutes. Halfway through the Falcons’ mission, the casing that held the electronics on Ipski-Pipski crushed in. The robot lost volume and flotation and was unable to rise to the surface on its own power. The students pulled the impaired robot to the surface (incurring a 5 point penalty), made some quick repairs and sent the ROVs down to finish the mission in 26.8 minutes, the second-fastest time.
“The most rewarding part of the competition was to watch our students diagnose the problem when Ipski was almost crushed, and quickly come to a consensus on a possible solution, haul the ROV up, add buoyancy, and continue the mission, while the clock was ticking with no room for error,” coach Dr. Allan Cameron said. “They never gave up and pulled off a successful mission out of a near disaster. They were a professional engineering team.”
Nine of the 16 teams failed to resurface, including MIT, marking the third consecutive year that little Carl Hayden has defeated the top engineering students in the nation.
-30-

A more detaild account can be read at:
http://www.hispanicengineer.com/artm...icle_181.shtml

From past experience, we are pretty sure this story will receive not only local media attention, but also national coverage. We'll see.

There are a number of FIRST high schools in the ranger (or high school division) and they have quite an advantage over the "civilians".

Email me if you want more information

[Rohith Surampudi]

Thats awesome , do you hve any pictures of the robot actually in the water ?

[Lil' Lavery]

This is one of the biggest reasons (of a very long list) that 842 is near the top of my Championship Chairman's contenders list. Another amazing year by 842, it's unbeleivable that you can fair so well, even against major universities like MIT. Congratulations!

[Josh Murphy]

These are the kinds of things that make FIRST stand out. Congratulations on a successful year and good luck.

[Donut]

Even after 3 years that is still just as amazing as the first year I heard about this. Congratulations again!

I think we know who'd have an edge when FIRST does do an underwater game...

[Dan Petrovic]

Ahh! They have a head start at next year's game!

That's pretty sweet.

Our town runs an annual Cardboard boat race in August. Last August 166 competed in it's first year and swept the whole thing. We pretty much mopped the floor with the 40 year old men that have been doing this for years.

That boat race doesn't even come close to what you guys have done. Great job.

[N7UJJ]

Originally Posted by Rohith Surampudi

Thats awesome , do you hve any pictures of the robot actually in the water ?

Not during the competition, but here are videos we took at our local pool for practice

http://www.phxhs.k12.az.us/education...60&pagecat=202
http://www.phxhs.k12.az.us/education...60&pagecat=206
http://www.phxhs.k12.az.us/education...60&pagecat=207
http://www.phxhs.k12.az.us/education...60&pagecat=208

[RoboMadi]

Congrats Falcons!
You guys truly represent FIRST in any way possible

[santosh]

Great job guys. I think I heard about this competition when we taught a school about VEX at a conference. Is there by chance a regional in the Southeast?

MIT has nothing on yall lol.

[N7UJJ]

Originally Posted by Rohith Surampudi

Thats awesome , do you hve any pictures of the robot actually in the water ?

OK, here is the obligatory music video:
http://www.phxhs.k12.az.us/education...60&pagecat=211

[N7UJJ]

Originally Posted by santosh

Great job guys. I think I heard about this competition when we taught a school about VEX at a conference. Is there by chance a regional in the Southeast?

MIT has nothing on yall lol.

There was not a VEX competition in the southWEST. However we bought a couple of VEX kits and formed an all girls team at school (The VEXens). The goal was to give the girls the opportunity to build and program and gain experience in construction.

At the Atizona regional they had a demo field and showed off the robots but there was no official game, thus there was no way they could qualify for the Nationals. Maybe there will be a VEX game in AZ this year.

MIT was a very strong competitor in 2004. In 2005 and 2006 they had catastrophic equipment failures which put them in the bottom of the rankings. I'm sure we have all had a match or two like that. Could happen to any team. All you can do is practice, practice, practice and test, test, ... Main problem (for us anyway) is we do not have access to a 40 foot pool. (The last two competitions have been held at the Neutral Bouyency Lab at the Johnson Space Center). What works in a ten foot pool can be crushed in a 40 foot one.

I think every FIRST team has cut corners on testing or practice and had it bite them at a round or two. One way or another we learn not to skimp on the testing or practice, if at all possible. The students at MIT that competed may not yet have enough experience. (Or as one kid said, "They have some of the smartest students in the U.S. on their team. All they are lacking is a homeboy who has been working with tools all his life." We laughed, but it may be true.

[falconmaster]

Originally Posted by N7UJJ

OK, here is the obligatory music video:
http://www.phxhs.k12.az.us/education...60&pagecat=211

Hey Allan, your link did not work, so here try this one

http://www.phxhs.k12.az.us/education...60&pagecat=211

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Allan,
Thanks for the updates. I remember reading great things about your water comp last year. I am proud to know your team is part of FIRST. Please pass along my congratulations on a job well done. You are one of my inspirational teams to look up to.
To other teams, if you think you do too much, this team competes in FIRST and then in the water competition. Talk about going the extra mile.
DE WB9UVJ

[N7UJJ]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

Allan,
Thanks for the updates.
DE WB9UVJ

Here is an article from today's Arizona Republic newspaper:

Robotics team finishes second

Karina Bland
The Arizona Republic
Jul. 3, 2006 12:00 AM





For teenagers from Carl Hayden High in Phoenix, their recent second-place finish in a national underwater robotics competition at the Johnson Space Center in Houston was bittersweet.

They beat out both high school and college students from across the country, including the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and fell only to the reigning champs from the Marine Institute of Memorial University in Newfoundland, Canada.

But, on the heels of their award, they learned that next year's contest will be held in Canada. They won't be going because their coaches won't risk taking students who may be in the country illegally across the border.


Many of the students at Carl Hayden are Hispanic and from poor Phoenix neighborhoods. Schools aren't obligated to ask about residency status or citizenship, and they don't. Federal law requires public schools to admit any child who lives within their attendance area.

Neither Allan Cameron nor Fredi Lajvardi, the teachers who coach Carl Hayden's robotics team, know which students among the 50 or so members are legal residents.

"Our belief is that every kid can join our club and participate," Cameron said. "We're not going to pick and choose based on something our kids don't have any control over, like their birthplace."

Schoolchildren sometimes don't know their true legal status. Many immigrant children were brought here as babies. Some discover their Social Security numbers are bogus when they apply for jobs or financial aid for college.

Not willing to risk that a student could be refused reentry to the United States, Cameron and Lajvardi said, the team won't compete in Canada.

Reason to worry
They have reason to worry.

In 2002, four students from Wilson Charter High in Phoenix were detained at the U.S.-Canadian border on a side trip to Niagara Falls while competing in an international solar-powered boat competition in Buffalo, N.Y.

Their plight raised awareness of children brought into the country illegally by their parents. Smart and articulate, the teenagers were held up as examples for the federal Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors, or DREAM, Act. Floundering in Congress since its introduction in 2003, it would allow college students who entered the country illegally as children to legalize their status.

In 2005, a federal judge threw out the deportation case against the Wilson students on the grounds that they were racially profiled. The students, now in their 20s, are awaiting a government appeal.

The Carl Hayden teachers don't want to see their students in the same predicament. Team captain Annalisa Regalado, 18, said the students are disappointed but understand. It would have been an expensive trip anyway.

Besides, there's talk that Carl Hayden, along with students from Arizona State University and Chandler High, could host their own underwater robotics competition here.

"As long as they get to do something with their hands, build and have fun, they're happy," Regalado said.

Students from across the country compete annually in the underwater robotics competition put on by The National Science Foundation, a nonprofit government agency that promotes science and technology. Student teams must build and pilot robots to complete a series of underwater tasks.

In the summer of 2004, four teenage boys from Carl Hayden won the robotics competition, stunning educators at the event and garnering worldwide media attention. Those students were undocumented immigrants, too. Now they are in college - one at the Scottsdale Culinary Institute - on private scholarships.

Since then, the robotics team at Carl Hayden has grown from a dozen kids to 50. The team continues to win awards, including for their volunteer work to get junior high students interested in engineering and science through mentoring and building robots. Every senior on the team in the past three years, about 25, so far, has gone into the military or college, most on full scholarships.

Now, at competitions, the team is closely watched. Sometimes there are snickers or comments that the team may have just been lucky in prior contests.

But Lajvardi said, "We believe in ourselves," and this latest win cements their reputation as solid and creative engineering students.

Nail-biting competition
For the Marine Advanced Technology Education Remotely Operated Vehicle Championship on June 24, students from Carl Hayden built two robots: a larger one the kids named "Otis" to navigate up and down the 40-foot deep pool, and a smaller one they called "Ipski-Pipski" to conduct a series of underwater tasks.

Halfway through Carl Hayden's mission, the casing that held the electronics on Ipski-Pipski collapsed. The robot couldn't rise to the surface on its own.

Nine of the 16 other teams' robots also were overcome by water pressure and never made it back to the surface in the allotted 30 minutes.

But the Carl Hayden students pulled the robot to the surface, swallowing a five-point penalty, made a quick repair, and sent it back down to finish the mission in 26.8 minutes, the second-fastest time.

"They never gave up and pulled off a successful mission out of a near disaster," Cameron said. "It was really beautiful to see."

[Qbranch]

videos..... must.... see.... videos....

-Q